1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a semiconductor design technology, and more particularly, to a semiconductor device including latch circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
As semiconductor devices achieve higher degrees of integration and operate at lower voltages, the occurrence of soft errors increases.
Soft errors occur randomly and may be corrected, unlike hard errors that result in permanent breakdown of devices. Soft errors are caused by alpha particles radiating from radioactive elements such as uranium (U), thorigum (Th) and americium (Am). For example, alpha particles existing in an Epoxy Molding Compound (EMC) may generate a high-energy silicon nucleus through collisions, creating electron-hole pairs that carry charges. Among these free carriers, the holes generally disappear through recombination in P-type wells that are present in the semiconductor device. The electrons cause soft errors by changing or inverting the logic level of logic nodes or memory nodes through diffusion and drift.
Soft errors are an important issue in semiconductor memory devices. Thus, memory devices try to fix soft errors through an error detection/correction function using an Error Correction Code (ECC). However, since not all soft errors are corrected by the ECC, efforts are still being made to reduce and repair them. In this application, soft errors will be discussed in the context of logic circuits. Logic circuits store information, and non-limiting examples include flip flops, latches and so on.